Charles River Laboratories Completes Acquisition of Majority Ownership of Vital River

James C. Foster, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Charles River Laboratories, commented, “Through this acquisition, Charles River will provide high-quality research models and associated services to the emerging China market for drug discovery and development. We expect demand for research models in China to significantly increase over the next several years as drug development initiatives in academia, government and biopharmaceutical companies expand. Charles River intends to set the standards for research models in China, the third-largest pharmaceutical market in the world, and play a leading role in this emerging opportunity.”

As part of the Vital River acquisition, Charles River will be the exclusive global partner for distribution of model creation services offered through Beijing Vital Star Biotechnology. The services of Beijing Vital Star Biotechnology include humanized model creation utilizing inducible pluripotent stem cell (iPS) and other technologies.

Charles River acquired the 75% ownership of Vital River for approximately $27 million, subject to certain post-closing working capital adjustments. The transaction is expected to add more than 1% to 2013 total net sales and be slightly accretive to 2013 earnings per share.